


Wishing Star

by Ranni



Category: Avengers, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, And it’s broken, Angst, BAMF Clint Barton, BAMF Tony Stark, Bruce Banner & Tony Stark Friendship, Captivity, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, Dark, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt Clint Barton, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, Jasper Sitwell is Not Hydra, Manipulation, Non-Avenger death, Non-Consensual Drug Use, POV Tony Stark, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Clint Barton, Protective Pepper Potts, Protective Tony Stark, Psychological Torture, Self-Harm, Starvation, Suicide Attempt, Survivor Guilt, Team as Family, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2019-02-14 11:33:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13006914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ranni/pseuds/Ranni
Summary: One of the guards looks just like David Bowie with wire-rimmed glasses. Tony is not sure if these things are wearing real humans as suits, or if they’ve chosen these faces somehow—but if so then this guard made a slight miscalculation with his choice.Bowie and the tiny female guard bring in a tray filled with tiny paper cups, the kind that pills come in at nursing homes. Each one is filled with a clear liquid. Seven cups are only a third full. For the children.“Drink.” Bowie frowns at Tony. “It will be better for you.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Double check the tags on this one!

  
*******

The gray haired man won’t stop shouting, demanding to be released.

One of the guards comes in and stands there, listens to the man yell for a minute, then shoots him in the head. There are stifled screams, and Tony claps his hands over the nearest kid’s eyes.

“Rule number one,” the guard says blandly. “Be quiet.”

 

*******

“Don’t I know you from somewhere?” the tall guy asks. He’s still in his business suit, a little funny looking since he’s missing his shoes. They all are. “I recognize you.”

The last thing Tony wants is to get into this discussion. He doesn’t want to know who the other captives are and doesn’t want them to know him. “You look familiar, too. Where do you work?”

“Crummens and McGearty Law Office.”

Tony snaps his fingers. “Yep, that’s it. I was a temp there for awhile.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Clint raises an eyebrow but doesn’t say anything.

  
*******

It’s time to travel again. They’re all herded into the back into a tractor trailer with no heat and little light. 

  
One of their captors looks just like David Bowie with blue wire-rimmed glasses. Tony isn’t sure if these things are wearing real humans as suits, or if they’ve chosen and created these faces somehow—but if that’s the case this guard made a slight miscalculation with his choice. His fashion sense is on point however; whatever they are they have a much easier time with clothing. More clearcut rules to follow, maybe.

Bowie and the tiny female guard bring in a tray filled with miniature paper cups, the kind that pills come in at nursing homes. Each one is filled with a clear liquid. Seven cups are only a third full.

Those are for the children.

“Drink,” Bowie says. The eyes are wrong—if he wanted to be David Bowie he should have really committed to it and taken the anisocoria as well—and he frowns at Tony. “It will be better for you.”

Thoughts of Jim Jones inspired koolaid screech through his head, but everyone is already drinking, even Clint. Tony almost hopes it _is_ poison, hopes that it will be quick and this will all be over; that he’ll just fall asleep and stay that way forever.

He drinks.

Sits down against the wall.

Waits.

 

*******

Clint had attempted escape right away, back when they were strong and still believed they lived in a different world. It was a foolhardy attempt, but he couldn’t help but try, and Tony couldn’t help but hope.

The female guard is not even five feet tall and he understandably assumed she’d be the weakest, so it was a bit of a surprise when she lifted Clint easily and and threw him into a wall. A few people screamed and Clint was on his feet immediately, only to receive a brutal kick to the forehead.

“Rule number two,” the tiny bitch said sweetly. “Do not attempt escape.”

 

*******

The tall guy sings. He has a nice voice, singing softly, so they won’t hear him.

Everyone remembers what happened the last time somebody was too loud.

“I smell the ocean,” someone whispers, and everybody raises their faces hopefully.

Tony inhales deeply. He can’t smell anything.

 

 

*******

The dark haired woman sticks to Tony and Clint like glue, moving wherever they move. She’s completely silent, as if guessing that making any noise would be too much and give them reason to drive her away, but even quiet she’s an annoying, constant presence. Tony gives her an exasperated look now and then, but deals with it otherwise, telling himself that she’s just scared, just latching onto stronger people in hopes that they’ll protect her.

Tony thinks she might be called Carol, or maybe Carina, but he’s been careful not to learn names. He doesn’t want to know anyone or be around them so long that they know each other’s personal histories. There’s no point, because they’re all going to be free soon and none of this will matter. 

But Tony can’t help but know Gary’s name, because he hates that guy with the fire of a thousand suns. Whenever they are fed Gary shoves his way past everyone to get the first portion, always tries to grab a second bottle of water. If one of the kids cries—though they cry less and less as the days pass—he snaps at them to shut up. Tony has already resolved that when this is over he’ll spend the remainder of his life making Gary’s as miserable as possible.

It’s all different for Clint. He seems fine with Maybe-Cara, or tolerates her clingy behavior at any rate. He also isn’t bothered at all by Gary’s nonstop grousing, and, unlike Tony, has learned everyone’s names and where they’re from. Hell, he probably even knows their _birthdays_ —Clint’s always been the kind of guy that could trip into a crowd of people and make three new friends before he stood up again.

Tony has never been like that. Every friendship he’s ever had has been hard won and accomplished almost in spite of himself. He holds onto the people he’s found as hard as he can, because they’re so few and far between. He can’t make any new friends now. Not like this.

 

*******

Clint comes over and pulls Tony close, the sides of their heads touching, so they can whisper almost inaudibly in the other’s ear. There’s no such thing as a private conversation in such close quarters.

“I can’t find a connection. Between everybody. I mean, _maybe_ there is one, but... None of the kids’ parents are here. Only you and I knew each other beforehand.”

“It’s about us, I think,” Tony whispers back. Barton’s neck is grimy along his shirt collar, and Tony swipes at it absently with his thumb. “They just picked these people randomly, to keep you and I in line.”

It works. Without the layer of civilians to worry about he and Clint would have fought their way free weeks ago, or died trying.

“If I see another opening, I’ll take it.”

Of course he will. While Tony will always try to reason or build his way out of a bad situation Clint will always attempt a more physical, hands-on approach—picking locks, squirming out of handcuffs, fighting. Clint will just keep throwing himself at the guards until he either takes one of them out or they put him down for good.

“I’ll have your back this time,” Tony tells him. “Just throw me a bit of warning before you ninja it up—a double blink or a cough or something.”

“No,” Clint whispers fiercely. “One of us has to live. To find the others; help them if they need it.” He’s quiet for a long moment, then adds “I think Natasha must’ve been killed. You know. That day.”

It hurts. Thinking of the others hurts.

“What the—why would you even _say_ that?” Tony’s voice is a hiss in Clint’s ear. “Don’t say that kind of thing.”

“She _must_ be, or she would have come by now. So she must be dead.”

“The team and SHIELD haven’t found us because we keep getting dragged back and forth all over the goddamned country. But they’re smart; they’ll catch up eventually.”

“Not if they’re dead. Did you see Steve? The way they—“

“ _Stop_.”

He says it a little too loudly, making Maybe-Colleen shift uncomfortably at Clint’s elbow. They deliberately haven’t talked about that day—the day the team was attacked and they ended up here. Of _course_ Tony had seen what happened to Steve, the way a bunch of them swarmed him, took him down to the ground. As Tony had been pulled away he’d tried to keep watching, but their captors were quick and he couldn’t see if Steve got back up again.

 

*******

“I think it’s my birthday today,” one of the women says. “If I’ve counted right, that is. I’m thirty-six.”

“Well, happy fucking birthday,” Gary mutters with such exaggerated surliness that there’s stifled laughter and the mood, somehow, impossibly, lifts a little.

Tony stage whispers “That’s the spirit, Gary, you asshole!” and there are more giggles.

That’s why they won’t win, Tony wants to tell them—because humans can be headed toward disaster and death and still find something to laugh about. Even if it’s gallows humor, they’ll look for it, try to share it.

 

*******

“—but Natasha found him easily. And she said ‘Silly dog, did you forget—‘“

Tony pauses his story and shifts a little to relieve the pressure on his screaming back—all this sitting on cement floors and against metal walls is murder on his joints and bones—and Santi shifts as well, trying to stay tucked under Tony’s arm.

He’s never particularly liked kids, nor have kids ever really liked him, but this group is somehow charmed by Tony, drawn to him like magnets. Sure proof of their incurable trauma, he thinks, even as he tries to entertain them with his stories. Since every fairytale he knows contains something horrible he has created his own, which are really nothing more than a simplified recounting of the Avengers’ day to day life, with all the characters changed into animals. The kids’ favorite story is of the time Steve the Golden Retriever went to the pet store and forgot to bring his wallet, so Natasha the Clever Cat and Bruce the Wise Owl had to go rescue him. Tony has told that one maybe twenty times now.

“As you can imagine, Steve was preeeetty embarrassed, but soon everything was set to rights.”

Tony always leaves himself and Clint out of the stories. Not only because it would awkward to talk about Barton’s adventures as a anthropomorphized chipmunk or bird right in front of the man’s face, but also because it’s easier to imagine the team without them. Just going on and living, continuing to have adventures.

“—and then everyone laughed, because they liked to laugh whenever they could.”

Tony tried not to learn the kids’ names either, but knows them all in spite of himself. The littlest, Becky, is not much more than a toddler, and wanders constantly between the adults, looking for a mother that isn’t here. Santi was snatched from his school bus stop and is still wearing his Boy Scout uniform. There are seven of them, all different ages, and some of the kids are too old, really, for cutesy stories like the ones Tony tells, but even they curl up nearby and listen with solemn eyes.

Clint listens with a faint, rueful smile, and Maybe-Chloe sits beside him, holding Becky on her lap. Most of the other adults are also listening to the story. It’s not like there’s anything else to do.

 

*******

Brainless brings the dinner that night—more protein bars and bottled water. Everyone is scared of him; he’s huge and kind of blank, like a huge windup toy that dispenses drugs and food.

But when he speaks he sounds perfectly normal, just like the other guards. That’s how they move around so easily, undetected. They aren’t awkward, unusual sounding aliens that use the wrong words, not body snatchers that obviously don’t fit in. They are an anonymous kind of normal, with department store clothing and clean fingernails and somewhat flattering haircuts.

They aren’t perfect, though. There’s the issue of the borrowed Bowie face, and Tiny Bitch’s disproportionate strength would raise some eyebrows if ever observed in mixed company. Brainless is freakishly big and tall—he looks like he’s just about to burst out of his person suit, and reminds Tony a little bit of Bruce Banner in the middle of a Hulk transformation.

“Goddamned automaton,” Tony gripes softly to Maybe-Carrie, who smiles faintly. “I bet that if you tore him open you’d find just a mess of a gears and sawdust inside, no blood at all.”

“Shut the hell up,” Gary grouses. He frowns when Santi sticks his tongue out at him from the safety of Tony’s arm, and Tony laughs and sticks his tongue out, too.

 

*******

“Why are you doing this?”

Part of him wonders if they even know why they’re doing it, or if they’re just blindly following orders. For all their planning and manipulating, there’s something oddly mindless about them.

“Where are we going?” he tries instead.

“To Florida,” Bowie answers vaguely, his eyes on the rest of the group.

“It does _not_ take weeks to make it from New York to Florida. It just doesn’t.”

Bowie narrows his eyes and looks over at Tony, as if really seeing and considering him for the first time. “Colorado, then.”

They’re not going anywhere. They’re just driving from warehouse to warehouse, storing their captives for a few days at each, then drugging them into oblivion and cramming them in a tractor trailer for the next leg of the trip.

“I want to talk to whoever is in charge. I want to know why this is happening.”

“It won’t be for much longer. We almost have the rest of your team.” Bowie smiles, lips peeling away from teeth.

It’s meant to be threatening, but all Tony hears is that Avengers are still alive.

 

*******

“Alright, Santiago, let’s see what we’ve got.”

He and the boy huddle over their treasures, sorting, counting them out. Their cache is small—it has to be, to stay hidden from the guards—and rather pathetic. There is next to nothing to work with, but between a genius inventor and a boy scout they’ve managed to scrounge up a few things.

Their captors are careful to remove trash, but when it’s piled up just right Tony has been able to squirrel away a few of the protein bar wrappers, keeping only the metallic ones. Santi smooths them out and then Tony twists them together into tiny cables. He has no idea what he can do with them, but a resource is a resource.

Water bottles are harder to stash, but they’ve gotten a few of those, too. The plastic is too flimsy to cut much of anything but Tony breaks them and creates a few shards all the same. Combined with the neckerchief slide from Santi’s scout uniform it’s shaping up to be an almost useful assortment before they lose it all.

They’re hustled into the locker area some kind of old school building one night and told to undress. They move slowly, uncertain and still disoriented from the latest round of drugs, then work to help the kids, three of whom are still asleep and had to be carried in. Brainless collects the pile of their dirty clothing and takes it away, and Tony exchanges a forlorn glance with Santi, sick at the loss of their carefully collected hoard, hidden in pockets.

Then they are allowed, or made—the distinction seems important somehow—to shower. The water is freezing and there’s no soap, but layers of grime sluice off and Tony feels vaguely more human and awake.

Afterward there’s a new pile of clothing mounded high—from baby pajamas to dress clothes and everything in between. America is teeming with unwanted clothing, and this a lot of donated items was undoubtedly procured cheaply and easily enough. It’s another sign that this is a coordinated, planned effort by someone—not these four guards, but whomever they answer to.

Tony grabs the first semi-appropriate items he sees and pulls them on. His new t-shirt says “Palmyra Panthers Baseball” and has a faint coffee stain down the front. Tony runs his fingers down it and tries to remember a time when he drank coffee.

 

*******

Clint makes another escape attempt, this time when it’s Bowie in the room, because he seems to be the least aggressive of them. Brainless is too big, the one that does all the driving rarely makes an appearance, and the Tiny Bitch...well...they already know she’s freakishly strong.

The tray of paper cups goes flying as Clint tackles Bowie to the ground. His fists shatter the wire rimmed glasses into the guard’s eyes and for one glorious moment Tony thinks it’s going to work, that they’re all going to be okay. But then Brainless appears as if by magic and hits Clint over the neck and shoulders repeatedly until the SHIELD agent finally goes still. Bowie gets off the ground, glaring at everyone, and grabs Clint by the ankle. When Brainless opens the door Tony can see the stars for the first time in weeks, only tearing his eyes away to watch Clint be dragged out.

Time passes, maybe an hour or two; it’s impossible to tell. Tony has one arm around Santi and the other around Maybe-Collette, telling himself that he isn’t clinging to them, because he isn’t worried, because Clint won’t be killed. They wouldn’t have taken him away; they always kill the captives in front of each other. As a lesson. Always. So that means that Clint can’t be dead.

And sure enough they open the door and throw Clint back in later, soaked to the skin and white as a sheet. He stays sprawled on the floor where he lands, unable to push himself back up.

“Rule number two,” Brainless says, making it into a question.

“Do not attempt escape,” Gary answers quickly, and everyone nods.

 

*******

“You can’t wear wet clothes when it’s this cold.” Enough of them are wearing two or three mismatched layers that they can certainly scrounge up a temporary outfit between fourteen adults. Tony grabs the hem of Clint’s shirt, and the archer tries to pull and twist away, clenching his teeth at the movement.

“Quit pawing at me. _Jesus_.” Clint sounds crabby enough, but he’s shivering hard and has a glassy-eyed, faraway look that Tony doesn’t like at all.

“Why are you wet?”

“Because it’s raining.” Clint glances at Maybe-Carol Ann before settling his eyes back on Tony, who couldn’t care less if she overhears. “The parking lot was flooded,” he says finally, his voice low. “The big Frankenstein guy had me on the ground, pinned under his foot. I thought for a minute they might drown me.” Clint tries to laugh it off, but his chattering teeth ruin the effect.

Tony grabs for the shirt again, and this time pulls it up high enough that Clint relents and lets it be peeled the rest of the way off, grimacing painfully. His neck and upper back are dark purple and black, and his left shoulder is definitely broken.

“You were gone hours,” Tony points out, unable to take his eyes off the injuries. “What else happened?”

“Nothing, really.” It sounds true enough but Clint won’t meet his eyes, and won’t talk about it any further.

No one is fed that day. Or the next.

 

*******

They’re hustled back into the tractor trailer, but this time one of the women refuses to drink the drugged water that Tiny Bitch brings, crying “No, I can’t, not again, I can’t, no no no.”

“Drink. It will be better for you.” They always say that; one of the stock phrases they have set on repeat.

“No!” the woman sobs, and someone else whispers desperately “Sarah, don’t be stupid!”

Tiny Bitch frowns and places the tray on the floor, then turns and kicks a different woman in the stomach. Everyone cringes away en masse, unable to escape anywhere in such confined quarters. Tiny Bitch kicks again, catching the tall guy—who already drank his dose and is swaying sluggishly—in the face. Kicks again and catches one of the bigger kids in the ribs.

The crying woman takes the cup then and drinks, shaking so hard that she spills a good bit of it first. Tony takes his own cup without protest, stares determinedly at the floor.

 

*******

It’s cold, freezing cold, when he wakes up. He’s not supposed to be awake, the drugs are supposed to keep him under, and he’s not completely awake, anyway. More of a watery wakefulness, like having a conscious dream.

Everyone is piled on the floor together and it’s uncomfortably warm where they all touch, but cold everywhere else—the metal beneath him and the air above. Tony thinks dimly it would be better just be cold all the way through rather than exposed to this horrible layered temperature.

From the sounds he can tell they are on the highway, moving fast. The trailer reeks of urine and unwashed bodies, the air thick with mingled breath that condensates on the metal walls. Someone’s legs are sprawled atop Tony’s; he doesn’t have the strength to push them off. His eyes move sluggishly and find Clint, who is fully out, his face pressed against Tony’s stomach. He doesn’t see Maybe-Claudia or Santi but they must be close by also. Where else would they be?

The semi trailer hums and bumps and rocks on the road. There are car noises outside, the sounds of other humans traveling freely, deciding where they want to go and when, and just moving there. It is incomprehensible that the only things separating Tony from that freedom and autonomy are a bit of steel and a bloodstream full of pharmaceuticals. But the walls may as well be solid bedrock for as little damage as his fingers can do to them, and his drugged haze may as well be a mineshaft for as little as he can escape it.

As soon as everyone starts to stir the truck pulls to a stop and they’re drugged again. Tony wonders later if that means the Avengers are closing in.

He doesn’t mention it to Clint. There’s no point in getting his hopes up.

 

*******

“The police never come,” Santi says. He has a rattling cough that was concerning two days ago and has steadily crept into panic territory since. “Don’t they know we’re missing?”

“Shut that fucking kid up,” Gary mutters, covering his face with his hands.

Tony glares at him and pulls the boy closer. His shoulders are bony, but Tony rubs them anyway, trying to warm him up a little.

“Maybe if we pray just right, God will save us,” Santi suggests hopefully. Then, with a flash of desperate inspiration, “Or we can wish on the wishing star!”

“That sounds like a fine idea,” Tony says tightly, and someone sighs.

He hates this, everything about this. He wants to be like the Hulk, tear away the metal walls of the storage building, and run. Run forever. Run away from Santi’s cough and clingy Maybe-Caroline, from Dixie cups full of drugged water, from childish pictures drawn in dust on floors. They’ve already lost several people and this little boy will be next, and Tony refuses to let it hurt. He just takes care of him out of basic human decency, like anyone would do. He doesn’t actually care about any of these people, not even the kids, and Santi is certainly _not_ his favorite.

He isn’t.

He isn’t.

 

*******

“When they come in, we’re gonna rush them,” Clint tries for the hundredth time. “Okay? All of us together. There are fourteen of us and four of them; we can do it!”

“Because that’s worked _so_ well in the past,” Gary says sourly, then, to everyone else, “If we follow the rules, we’ll be okay. Don’t listen to this guy; he’s going to get himself killed, and maybe some of us, too.”

“We wait too much longer and we won’t be strong enough to do anything at all,” Clint points out. “I don’t know what the endgame of this is, but I think we can all agree it’s not going to be good. Yes, they have guns, and maybe some of us will get shot. But the rest of the group will live. We have to try.”

“I hope it’s _you_ that gets shot,” Gary snaps, and a few people nod in agreement.

One of the children starts crying and there are scattered shushes.

 

*******

Clint doesn’t get shot.

Tiny Bitch beats him to the ground while Bowie throws Tony into the wall and holds everyone else back with a gun. Brainless and Driver rush in also, and their latest escape attempt is over before it even properly begins.

“You never learn,” Tiny Bitch says as Brainless drags Clint up by his bad shoulder. She gestures to Bowie, who pulls Maybe-Chloe out of the crowd of women, and looks back at Clint. “You will be punished. You will kill her.”

“Fuck you.” Clint pushes against Brainless, who shakes him so hard that Clint’s teeth crack against one another audibly. “I won’t. Fuck you; I won’t.”

Tiny Bitch gives Bowie a nod, and he shrugs before breaking Maybe-Carmen’s arm. She screams and Tony grabs Santi, turns the kid’s face into his chest so he can’t see. The other adults do the same with the rest of the kids, every one of them crying.

“Stop it!” Clint begs, struggling harder, his bare feet kicking ineffectually at Brainless’ leg. “Leave her alone!”

Bowie breaks Maybe-Caroline’s other arm.

All these weeks and she’s never made a sound, other than to murmur at the kids once in awhile, in hopes that they would not push her away, hoping Clint could keep her safe. She’d latched herself onto the person she thought most likely to protect her, to get her through this hell, and here she is, suffering because of him. She’s always been so quiet but she can’t stop screaming now.

Bowie breaks her leg.

Then her other leg.

Tony wants to hide his face the way the kids hide theirs, but he makes himself watch what they’re doing to her, what they’re doing to Clint. That’s all any of them can do for her now; bear witness.

Her real name is Clara and Tony has always known that.

Finally Clint goes limp and Brainless drops him to the ground. With effort, Clint sits up and holds out his arms, and Bowie pushes Clara, stumbling on her broken legs, into them. She stops screaming, and Clint kisses her forehead before breaking her neck.

“Rule number two,” Tiny Bitch says, letting the sentence hang meaningfully.

“Do not attempt escape,” Clint answers numbly. When they pull Clara away he does not lower his arms but just leaves them raised, empty.

 

*******

Everyone keeps their distance after that. There’s not much space to be had in such a confined area—some nondescript cement basement this time, with fluorescent lights that bathe everyone in a sickly blue hue—but the point is still easily made. Clint is not a part of the group anymore.

Tony sits by him just the same and sticks his chin out defiantly. “We’re in this together,” he reminds everyone.

“No, we aren’t,” Gary snarls back. That asshole.

Tony wraps an arm around Clint, who doesn’t say anything. It’s not fair that they’ve pushed him out when he was the one who’d bothered to learn all of their names.

 

*******

They shower again, are given new clothing again. Tony’s smarter this time and manages to keep his cache hidden under his arm, wrapped tightly in fabric.

He’s helping Santi get dressed when the scuffle starts. The tall guy has somehow found a sweatshirt in the huge mound of clothes, and Gary decides to take it from him. The tall guy tries to keep it, more an instinctive reaction to the attack than because of any proprietary urge. Tony moves toward them, separated by confused people and a sea of clothing, and the bossy woman is saying “Hey now!” in an authoritative voice that everyone ignores.

The tall guy grunts and stumbles as Gary pushes him, crashing into one of the kids, who screams in terror and starts crying. The tall guy rolls away but stays on the ground, panting a little.

“ _Gary_!” Tony spits, making the name into a curse. “Goddamn you, Gary, you piece of shit!”

“I might be, but you are a monster.” Gary says savagely, standing and pointing for emphasis, towering over everyone. “And _you_.” He jabs his finger toward Clint, who sits apart from the group, just watching. “That Mexican gal died because of you. I _told_ you not to try it. I _told_ you.”

“Quiet!” someone screams in a whisper. “Too loud! Too loud; they’ll come in!”

 _Rule number one_ , Tony thinks sickly, helping the tall guy to his feet. _Be quiet._

 

*******

It’s a luxury to have any kind of bed at all, even if they are just metal bunks and boards with no mattresses. Not only does a bed makes him feel human, but it also, for the first time, gives him an actual tool. Tony works off one the brackets that holds it to the wall, using a bit of zipper from his too-large jeans to loosen the screws, then finishes the job with fingertips left bruised and bleeding. The whole thing is made harder still because he has to do it without one of the kids coming over to see what he’s up to. Kids can’t be trusted with secrets. He can’t risk the hope showing on their faces.

When he finally works the bracket free he hides it in his waistband to show Clint, who hasn’t left his bunk all day. “What do you think?”

“Wow, you’re really simplifying the new Iron Man suit, huh? Bare bones kinda stuff. Artsy. Raw.” Clint’s voice is muted, as though murmuring from the end of a long tunnel.

“Can it break the chains on the door? If we—“ He mimes a sawing motion and Clint laughs a little.

“No. But you should sharpen the long edge. Get close when they bring food. Cut their throats.”

That would have been unthinkable before; too violent. It’s not unthinkable any more.

 

*******

Santi dies that night.

He doesn’t pass quietly in his sleep, or with meaningful, inspiring last words, but writhing and choking and suffering for hours. Tony feels like he’s going to go insane before it’s over, wants to beg Clint to end it faster, like he had done for Clara. Tony can’t do it himself, can’t kill a child, not for any reason, not even when it would be a mercy. So he can’t ask Clint to do the same and Clint doesn’t offer—they just sit side by side and watch in grim silence as Santi dies.

They don’t cover him with a blanket—they don’t have one. Tony covers his face with a spare shirt instead and hopes it’s enough, wishing it could have been the kid’s own Boy Scout shirt, wishing they hadn’t lost it. They fold his hands over his stomach and Tony keeps his eyes there for hours, hoping to see one of the little hands twitch, hoping that Santi’s God will somehow take it back.

“Clint,” he says finally, and Barton’s minute shift is the only indication that he hears. “The Avengers aren’t dead. But they aren’t coming. We have to get out of here.”

“I tried. You _know_ I did.”

“It’s time to go bigger. No need to hold back. We’ll either get everyone out, or...it just ends. Either way we’re free, and either way is better. For everyone.” He hadn’t thought that way before. Not before Santi.

Clint stares at the boy’s body. “Yeah. Okay.”

 

*******

Tony tells them it’s happening, whether they like it or not. The tall guy surprises him by agreeing, and so do three of the women. It’s enough of them that the rest of the group has to go along.

There’s some argument if the strongest of them should rush the guards or be the ones to carry the kids out—both options make perfect sense—but finally they decide that they have to do anything that might mean the little ones make it. Clint and Tony, of course, will be at the front of the group to create the diversion, to fight. Because is it their plan, because they are the reason everyone else is here.

Tony uses his sharpened bracket to get into the lone electrical outlet and expose the wires while Clint and the bossy woman comb through everyone’s clothing, looking for polyester, rayon—all the best flammable materials. Some people end up minus most of their outfits but that doesn’t matter. They won’t be cold much longer.

And Tony finally utilizes all his little treasures—the pathetic set of tools he and Santi saved, and lost, and saved again—to start a fire. He uses the shard from a water bottle to shave long fibers off the drawstring from someone’s pajama pants to create kindling. The long, careful twists of metallic cereal bar wrappers bridge the terminals in the socket, the sparks igniting the kindling with an almost anticlimactic ease. The clothing burns quickly, and Tony piles it in the doorway, so the smoke will pour out the bottom.

He stands and dusts his hands off in a showy _all done_ gesture, then hesitates only a moment before handing the sharpened bracket to Clint, who takes it solemnly. Even weakened and injured he’s the better choice for hand to hand combat.

“All right, everyone,” Tony says, as the flames start to really take off and the storage unit fills with smoke. “Time to break rule number one.”

He kicks the door, trying to avoid the flames and not really suceeding, and everyone else starts screaming and banging on the walls. The kids cling to the adults’ backs, watching over their shoulders with big, terrified eyes. Clint stands beside Tony with the bracket in his hand, not making any noise, but waiting. Waiting for the door to open.

And finally, it does.

“ _No no no no!_ ” Tiny Bitch screams, the fire really roaring now with the sudden rush of air, first licking at her clothing, then quickly jumping up her pant leg.

She screams again and tries to beat it out, and Clint cleaves her head nearly in two with a savage cry. Tony has a moment of stuttered surprise when her blood pours out as thick and red as any other human’s, but then pushes her body out of the way. The door is open. All of them run, surging forward in a combination of panic and the need to _get out get out get out_ and it’s blessedly cool outside, and dark.

Bowie is running toward them and shooting but no one stops. The captives scatter in every direction, just as they had planned, and Bowie’s gun swivels back and forth, not sure who to target. He’s not as strong as the Tiny Bitch, and so relies on that gun, and that’s his last mistake, because once Hawkeye jumps him and gets hold of it the whole thing is basically over.

Tony stops to watch the fight, to make sure they’re all dead. No one else does; they just keep running, and the last of them Tony sees is Gary, that asshole, sprinting into the night with a kid latched onto his back.

 

******

Clint tells the fire department, then the local police, that he’s been undercover, busting a human trafficking ring. He’s thin and wasted and beaten to hell, and they obviously don’t believe him at all, but he knows their language, says all the right things. They hand him a phone and he calls SHIELD.

Tony’s legs are burned, maybe some other areas too, but he won’t get up for the paramedics to check him over. Clint sits on the ground beside him, still gripping some police officer’s phone and staring into space. Someone wraps blankets around their shoulders and Tony pulls his closed tightly, sighing a little. He doesn’t think he’s ever felt anything quite so soft, so warm.

“Tony,” Clint says finally, his voice broken and almost unrecognizable from smoke and fatigue.

“ _No_. Whatever it is you’re going to say—don’t. I don’t want to hear it right now. We’re alive. We’re out. Just... _don’t_.”

“Okay.” Clint leans forward to rest his chin atop his drawn up knees.

 

*******

SHIELD arrives quickly and without fanfare, just a bunch of people wearing suits and grim expressions, and takes over the entire operation. Maybe the local police are a little put out, but in the end they allow it. SHIELD always gets its way.

They’re still on the ground. Clint is struggling to talk to the agent crouched down beside them, and Tony is feeling relieved he’s not a part of SHIELD and so can keep ignoring everyone when a familiar pair of legs appear in front of him. He looks up, and up, and up, and it’s Steve Rogers standing there, wearing his Captain America uniform and looking so strange and familiar and out of place that Tony just laughs. Steve reaches a hand out to him and Tony starts to reach back, then stops. His own hand is filthy with grime and soot and blood and just hangs there in the air uncertainly.

“Up you go,” Steve says quietly and hooks his hands under Tony arms and lifts him easily, as if he weighs nothing.

It’s so easy—he was on the ground and _blink_! he’s suddenly standing on wobbly legs—that Tony laughs again. Less than an hour ago he’d been human chattel carted around the country by who knew what kind of creature and now Captain America is here, saving the day. Tony touches the star on his chest, suddenly needing to make sure it’s real. It all seems a little unlikely somehow.

But of course it’s real. The police finally came, and so did Santi’s wishing star.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

  
*******

Steve holds onto Tony awkwardly, as if wanting to draw him into a hug but not quite daring to. After several self aborted starts he squeezes Tony’s upper arms instead and smiles tightly down at Clint, who hasn’t moved whatsoever. The SHIELD medics hover nearby, twitchy and impatient to get to work.

“Are you—“ Steve starts to say, then stiffens and calls over his shoulder “Here! They’re over here!”

They hear Natasha before they see her, snapping “ _Move_!” to the SHIELD agents in her way, to the local personnel still milling around, wrapping up their work. She stops short in front of them, looking a little wild around the edges and practically swimming in a man’s winter coat, Bruce half a step behind her, looking not much better. Natasha reaches a hand down wordlessly to Clint.

But he doesn’t reach back, his arms and legs still drawn up against his chest, his face tilted up a bit to look at her. “Oh. You’re alive.” His voice sounds oddly small and remote. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think we’d make it.”

Natasha falls to her knees immediately and shoves his shoulders back roughly so that he falls back out of his huddled position. The front of his body is completely soaked in blood, so much that it’s impossible to tell where it originates. “Are you shot?” she demands. “Where are you hit?”

The medics move in at last and swarm him, pushing Natasha aside. Tony looks at his hands again, covered in blood. Clint’s blood, apparently, though he doesn’t remember the archer getting shot. He holds a hand out toward Bruce’s face.

“It isn’t mine,” he tries to say, but it comes out slurred and awkward, and everyone is running and moving and pulling and pushing.

 

*******

“Some sort of sedative,” Tony says, hoping he’s answering the right question. She’s asked so many.

Tony gives up trying to focus on the blond medic’s face—she’s alternately bobbing in too close and then leaning back to get things—and tries to focus on the other medics working on Barton while offering her halfhearted answers. _Knife wound_ , he hears, and _get the A positive_ and _just calm down_. Maybe Clint’s dying. Maybe they’ve lived through all that horror just for him to die immediately after being rescued.

Tony snorts, even though it’s not a particularly funny thought. Blond Medic frowns and shines a penlight in his eyes. Tony winces, wondering why the hell she needs a flashlight when it’s already painfully bright in here.

“Don’t go toward the light,” he calls over to Clint, who’s trying to pull off his oxygen mask, and laughs again.

They’ve got Clint laid out but Tony stays stubbornly seated upright, gripping the edge of his stretcher and trying not to sway. Bruce, Natasha, and Steve sit on a padded bench a little further away, watching everything. This is more of a tricked out medical bus than an ambulance—SHIELD is used to dealing with multiple traumas at once. Tony takes a deep breath because this isn’t _anything_ like being crammed in the back of a tractor trailer. There are seats and lights and heat and it isn't the same at all.

Blond Medic raises her eyebrows and Tony supposes she’s been talking again. “How were the drugs administered?” she asks with exaggerated slowness.

“Orally. It was in the water.” He stifles another laugh at how funny the word “orally” sounds, resists the urge to say it again.

“Just hold still,” one of the other medics says, and there’s a clatter of things falling. Bruce jumps up and hovers in the open area, crowding too close, and Tony leans away as far as he can. There’s not nearly enough space, or air, in here for this many people.

“You need to have an IV,” Bruce tells Clint, who’s still thrashing uselessly, his motions slow and clumsy. “I’m sorry, but it’ll be okay. I’ll watch over everything and make sure it’s okay.” His skin of his hand looks so dark against Clint’s, which is the color of chalk.

“I don’t know,” Tony says, because the questions just keep coming, and that answer seems to cover everything. “I don’t know,” he says to the next, and the next, and then “Every few days, I guess. Whenever they needed to move us” to one he can actually answer. They’re being moved _now_ , but it’s to the hospital this time. Moving farther away from the nightmare. Moving closer to home. Closer to Pepper.

Something cold washes over his hand and Tony jerks it away, but Blond Medic just reaches out carefully and takes it in hers again, resumes scrubbing it gently with an alcohol towelette. The clean spot makes the rest of him feel all that much dirtier. Tony blinks at it, the world tilting and swaying a little.

“Easy now,” she cautions.

Tony looks back over to Clint, the other two medics poking at a huge, ragged cut in his right forearm that is gushing out all the blood they’re trying to pump in. The archer’s eyes are open, but they’re rolled back oddly, and he doesn’t look like a piece of chalk anymore. He looks dead.

The world dips again and Blond Medic’s soft voice goes sharp suddenly—“Lay back!”—and Steve appears, his arms around Tony again, and it’s the last thing he remembers for a good long while.

 

*******

The sheets feel like silk, like the finery reserved for royalty and gods. Tony knows that can’t be true—intellectually, he knows that hospitals buy in bulk and wash in industrial loads—but they still feel so damned good. The mattress molds to and caresses his body in a way he’s forgotten after ages of sleeping on cement floors or leaning against metal walls. The few beds they’d had were little more than glorified wooden shelves. This, now, is luxury. This is opulence. Tony Stark feels more like a rich man than he has in ages, and he hasn’t even opened his eyes yet.

He has an IV in his hand, something clipped to his finger, those weird inflating pillow things wrapped around his legs, and an oxygen cannula stuck up his nose, but it’s all okay, because Pepper is here.

“Hey there, beautiful.” He goes for the gruff flattery she likes and misses by a wide margin.

“Hello, handsome.” She holds his hand carefully, the one without the IV. It’s clean now, too. All of him is clean. “I missed you.”

“How long? How long were we gone?”

“About seven weeks.” Pepper’s voice is soft, probably trying to hide that she’s crying a little.

“God.” It seemed longer, like an entire lifetime sandwiched in between now and the life before. “Where’s Clint?”

“Just down the hall. He’s okay. You’re okay, too.”

“What about the others...has SHIELD found any of them?” The other captives had scattered in all directions. He’d tried to tell the cops that, but they hadn’t looked. Surely SHIELD has.

“I really don’t know.”

“What about—“ Tony bites his lip. “The guards. Has anyone looked at the bodies yet?”

Pepper shrugs again, helplessly. He needs to get Steve in here to tell him what’s going on. Natasha would be better. She’s a SHIELD agent and will know, and she never lies, even when she should.

 

*******

His initial debrief with Jasper Sitwell goes about as well as any of the others he’s ever participated in, which is terribly. Tony has no patience for the meticulous record keeping that SHIELD thrives on, and it’s worse now than ever—he feels trapped in this hospital bed, its initial comfort has morphed into something confining, his skin wanting to jump away from every point of contact with the sheets or brush of IV tubing. He’s shivering and sweating and wants to snatch Sitwell’s glasses off his face and shove them down his throat.

“What kind of truck did they use?” Sitwell asks. He never stops typing for a second, whether he’s asking questions or listening to the answers, his fingers pounding aggressively on the keys, then darting up to bang the backspace repeatedly.

“As in, what model?” Tony rolls his eyes. He swipes at the sweat on his forehead, gritting his teeth at the pull of the needle in his hand. “How the hell would I know? I only ever saw the inside of it.” He kicks the blankets down, then remembers he’s wearing a fucking hospital gown and pulls them back up. Then decides he couldn’t care less who sees his pasty legs and pushes them away again, his chin up in challenge.

“How long, would you say, was the timeframe between entering the trailer and being drugged and falling asleep?”

“I have no idea. However long it took for them to pass the shit out. What the hell difference does it make? It worked fast.”

Sitwell lets off another barrage of machine gun typing, followed by the _taptaptaptap_  of the delete key, frowning at his fingers. “Did Agent Barton also drink the drugged liquid?”

“Of course. Everyone did.”

“Did you actually witness him drinking it? Did you witness him actually asleep from its effects?”

Tony exchanges a look with Pepper, who leans forward as if to pat him on the arm, and flinches away preemptively, knowing he’ll go crazy if anyone touches him right now. “Yes, I saw him drink it, many times. Yes, I saw him asleep.”

“Did you or Agent Barton ever attempt to _not_ drink the drugged liquid?”

Tony glares at Sitwell until the man, mercifully, stops typing and looks up. “What the fuck are you implying?”

“I’m not—“

“That we didn’t try hard enough? That we just went along with things because it was easy or _fun_ or something? That Barton could have done more, tried harder? That _I_ could have?”

“Mr. Stark...” the agent says mildly.

“They didn’t want anything. Did Barton tell you that? That they never asked anything about SHIELD, or the Avengers, or about my tech? They never mentioned money. They never said _anything_ that they absolutely didn’t have to—just a bunch of little worker bees doing their thing, rather like a stupid keyboard-smashing asshole I happen to know. So let me ask you, _Jasper_ —what were we supposed to bargain with, when they didn’t want anything? How were we supposed to fight back when there was nothing at hand, when they hid behind a bunch of scared, human shields? Exactly what is it that you think we should have done?”

Pepper says “I think we should finish this another time” and Sitwell nods, closing laptop and noisily gathering a bunch of file folders spread out on the beside table.

“Are you cold?” Pepper asks, and Tony’s shivering, so maybe he is. She pulls the blankets back over him and goes to the cabinet to get another.

She tucks it all around him and it feels great, another layer of almost suffocating warmth. It’s really too much—Tony is actually sweating underneath all these layers, but he’s cold too. A remembered cold, one that’s seeped into his bones and won’t let up.

 

*******

Three days later they leave the hospital and head back home. Clint sits by Natasha on the jet and doesn’t say anything, doesn’t take the hand that she leaves on the armrest, palm up in offering. His upper back is in some sort of brace and he’s still sallow and sick looking.

Tony is happy enough to be going home but the flight is a wretched experience, far more painful than the medical transport had been, since he doesn’t have shock and fatigue dulling the raw panic that climbs into his throat as the doors shut.

“What should we do when we get home?” Pepper asks cheerfully, trying to defuse the tension that coils around them like smoke, turning the cabin into something noxious, threatening to choke them all. “You’ve been gone so long—“ as if he and Clint have been away on holiday or business, and have only now decided to come back “—and I suppose I can guess what you would like to do first. You’ll probably go down to the range.” She smiles at Clint, who just glances up at her and says nothing of his immobilized shoulders or the dozens of stitches in his forearm. Pepper nudges Tony fondly. “And you’ll be in your workshop.”

“Gee, Pep, how about we go on a roadtrip?” he snaps, irritated by her cautious optimism, but not half as much as by the dimensions of the jet, which seems narrower than normal, wishing there was a window in this damned thing, because everything would be easier if he could just see a bit of blue sky. “How’s that sound, Barton? We can play the license plate game and sing car songs!”

Steve sighs loudly and Pepper looks away, embarrassed. It would be better if she would just get mad instead, easier to hear her yell than to watch her and the others dance around everything so carefully.

“We’ll be home soon,” Natasha points out quietly. “New York isn’t far away.”

 

*******

Tony spends the next week in a haze, avoiding everyone and trying to fit himself back into a life that seems both familiar and terribly strange, as if the whole thing a old puzzle, but the pieces all recut, resized.

He pokes around in his workshop, trying to remember what he’d been working on before, trying to remember what had ever been so captivating that he’d willingly spent hours, even days, sealing himself within the same four walls, which feel too confining no matter how far apart they are.

He has JARVIS put on some music, then has him turn it way up, then immediately down, Tony’s brain temporarily stuttering over _too loud, too loud_ whispered in someone else’s terrified voice. He makes the music louder again, because he’s free, damnit, because no one can stop him. This is his space, his home, he owns the walls and can even knock them down if that’s what he wants, if he decides he needs more space.

Then he turns the music down again. It’s too loud.

“Show me, JARVIS,” he says, and absolutely does not imagine that he hears a long suffering sigh echo from the speakers all around him. Still the image pops up immediately, Santiago Cruz-Henao, age six, grinning and missing his two front teeth. JARVIS has strategically edited out the rest of the missing poster until only the photo remains.

His family is still looking for him. They’ve been looking for over two months now, fearing the worst but still hopeful that he’ll be found alive, that they’ll get him back. Tony has had JARVIS compile every tearful plea from Santi’s parents, every grave report from increasingly an increasingly hopeless police captain, his heart a painful twist inside of him as they beg for anyone to help them, for any information. For whoever took Santi to please, please, please send him home.

Tony can’t give them their boy back, can’t even give them his body back, because the guards had taken it away, did with him whatever they did to the others that died. The bodies have never turned up anywhere, and all SHIELD has to confirm six deaths is the word of Iron Man and Hawkeye, and those don’t appear to be worth much anymore. He wants to call Santi’s parents and tell them the truth, to give them closure, but how can he do that, when he has no proof to back up his claim, has nothing to offer but a heartbreaking story of the terrible way their son had died.

“God,” he says, screwing his palms into his eyes, the fingertips pressing into his forehead, as if to dig the memories out. His hands move just enough to catch a flash of movement as JARVIS swiftly removes Santi’s picture. “Put him back!” Tony snaps and JARVIS displays it again immediately.

Tony worries at the hem of his shirt. It’s one of his favorites—a Pat Benatar t-shirt that Rhodey gave him as a joke—but it’s not right anymore. He’d gotten it caught on a drawer pull years ago and tore a hole in the bottom hem, but this one is perfect, with no hole at all. He’d puzzled over that for days, along with the crispness of some of his jeans, before he realized that Pepper had replaced all of his clothing with new sizes to accommodate his recent weight loss. It was almost perfect, almost went unnoticed, as she had intended.

Pepper wants him to fit back into things like he always has, right back into his workshop, right back into his clothing—they _all_ want that. Soon they’ll start pestering him about movie nights and group dinners and she’ll start nagging him about meetings. They want everything to be like it was when that’s impossible, when nothing can be right in a world where little boys get taken from bus stops, where people huddle in fright, where even two superheroes weren’t enough to save them.

 

*******

The final debrief is just as long as the first, but ten times more painful, because everyone is here this time, parked on chairs like tiny morose islands, the large table an off white ocean that separates them. Clint does most of the talking, probably by Fury’s design—he avoids Tony’s talking whenever possible.

“—I took the gun and shot the other two. There were sirens by then, so we just waited near the building. The fire was already out.”

“You took the wounds to your arm when struggling for the gun?” Sitwell’s voice is carefully disinterested and he’s checking boxes all over a form— _tick tick tick tick—_ cross referencing their individual debriefs against this one. Fury’s secretary sits beside him, taking dictation, her light tapping of the keys a counterpoint to Sitwell’s scratchy checkmarks.

“Yeah, the one with glasses had a knife,” Clint says, and Tony gives him a sharp look.

That isn’t right. Bowie never carried a knife. Clint had been shaky when talking to the first responders but still steady enough to contact SHIELD, then they had sat and waited for over half an hour before the team rolled in. He couldn’t have been bleeding that heavily the whole time.

 _I didn’t think we’d make it_ , he’d said, stayed seated even when the team showed up, his arms not reaching back toward Natasha’s

“And the six civilians that died? What were their names again?”

“There was a man shot the first day; no one knew his name. Tanya Bagchi was shot maybe a week later. Naomi Booker died in the truck—probably from an overdose. Maddie Kale, also shot. Clara Zambrano died in...uh...in an accident.” It’s the first stumble in his narrative, which has otherwise been perfect and professional, and Natasha narrows her eyes at him. “Santiago Henao died of illness. Pneumonia, if I had to guess.” Clint doesn’t look at Tony, instead scrubs at an imaginary spot on the table with his fingertip. “They took the bodies away. I don’t know what happened to them.”

“Their families are still wondering,” Tony says pointedly to Fury, who all but shrugs. Santi is just another name in SHIELD’s files, another tick of Sitwell’s pen.

“We also have no accounting of Gary Stanowski, who you both claim was present and survived.”

“The asshole?” Tony says in surprise. The secretary taps a few keys and a picture pops up on the room display—it’s Gary, sunburnt and smiling and holding up a large fish. Gary Stanowski. “I know he got out. I saw him running with the little one. Becky.”

“Becky Thorton was left at an emergency room a few miles away by an unidentified male who did not remain. Maybe it was Stanowski,” Sitwell says, as if he doesn’t care one way or another, then checks a few more boxes. Gary matters as little to him as Santi, both just unresolved inconveniences.

“What about your captors?” Fury asks. “Did you know their names?”

There’s an odd, expectant hush then, and even Sitwell’s pen stills and he looks up, eyes moving between Tony and Clint. The secretary waits, her hands hovering over the keyboard. It feels like a loaded question somehow, as if everything hinges on the answer.

“They never formally introduced themselves,” Tony says cautiously.

Clint shakes his head. “They didn’t—they...” He clears his throat and starts again. “I never heard them call each other anything. I don’t remember them ever talking to one another at all.” He casts a questioning look at Tony, who nods in agreement.

“So have you finished their autopsies yet?” Tony has to know. “Have you figured out what the hell was wrong with those things? Were they aliens? Robots? _Zombies_? What the fuck _were_ they?”

“They were people,” Fury says mildly and gestures. A woman’s face replaces Gary’s, fills the screen at the front of the room.

It’s her. It’s the Tiny Bitch, who had been the worst of their guards. But here her hair is platinum blonde and bobbed and her eyes are half closed because she’s laughing, her arm slung tight around the waist of—

 _Bowie_. He’s laughing too, a beer bottle in one hand and Tiny Bitch’s ass cupped in the other, and he doesn’t resemble the singer at all, not even a little bit.

“What.” Tony’s voice is flat, unable to turn the word into a question.

“Melanie and Brandon Shupe, aged twenty-eight and thirty-four. Their families reported no contact for over a year, but they were never technically counted as missing—it’s not illegal to disappear by choice. Melanie has a history of aligning herself with fringe religious organizations, and her husband has taken anti-depressants since high school. They quit their jobs on the same day and left their home. A note left on the kitchen table said they were driving to Florida.”

“No. Fuck. _No_.” He’d pound the table for emphasis if he had any strength at all, if it weren’t bleeding out of him at the sight of those twinned smiles, and the careful wariness in everyone’s face, except for Clint, who looks stricken as Tony feels. “That’s not right. You can’t dress up what they were doing as...as mental illness or whatever you’re insinuating. Maybe they started out as these ‘Shupes’ but that’s not what they became, what they were with us. They _weren’t_ people!”

“Tony—” Bruce says hesitantly, and Fury signals for the next picture.

“Al Wilson, a long distance trucker for over twenty years. Appears to have been a loner, and was never reported missing, though he stopped paying taxes or using his bank account three years ago.” Another face. “Kenneth Charles Trimble, ceased all contact with his family after meeting a woman he called Helen. He taught elementary school.”

It’s Brainless, huge and smiling, standing next to a class of tiny children, all lined up in neat rows. He’s wearing a sweater vest and obnoxiously white sneakers.

“That’s bullshit. He was a monster. He was a mutant. The guy was seven feet tall and built like a Mack truck!”

“Trimble played football in college,” Fury says evenly. “And he was six foot eight, which _is_ very tall.”

“Wait,” Clint says numbly.

“Okay, so he was big. Barton had fifty pounds on the woman—fifty pounds at _least_ —and she tossed him around like a ragdoll. I’ve made a lifelong study of terrifying women, but that’s just _wrong_. That’s not normal any way you look at it!”

“Maybe she studied kung fu or something,” Steve offers, and Tony bites his tongue until it bleeds to keep himself from yelling something cutting and desperate in the captain’s face.

“Kung. Fu.” he mutters instead, clenching his fists, his head pounding. SHIELD is taking all this information and twisting it to seem like something it’s not...and for what? For what purpose besides making him seem crazy? “What is this about? You’re trying to hide this. For what fucking reason??”

“Tony,” someone says, because that’s all they ever say, and never follow it up with anything useful—just _TonyTonyTonyTony_ and he’s going to go mad from it.

“You lived it,” Fury says in that infuriatingly reasonable tone, like he’s channeling Phil Coulson’s spirit, “so it might be hard to see it from the outside. But try. Just...try to see it a different way. A way in which your perspective at the time might have been clouded by starvation, dehydration, and prolonged fear.”

“No.”

“You were systematically drugged. You were both treated at the hospital for withdrawal symptoms.”

“That’s not true,” Tony insists and glances at Bruce, who looks away. “Why the hell are you doing this?”

“Agent Barton is one of the best,” Fury goes on implacably, “but it probably wouldn’t take much to subdue him at twenty pounds underweight, injured, and full of narcotics.” He focuses on Clint, who’s staring hard at the table, gripping the edge as though it’s the only thing keeping him upright. “Think of your report, Barton. Try to read between the lines. A trucker that drove non-stop, with no breaks. This was a professional used to long days and you were also asleep—how could you know what went on? A strong man that used to play football, his flat affect maybe due to similar drugs to what you were given. A woman that was skilled and strong and deadly, rather like one you already know.” He inclines his head toward Natasha. “You got hold of some weapons and suddenly they all went down easily enough. We did a thorough autopsy. The bodies were normal.”

“You’re wrong,” Tony grits out and looks around at the others in appeal. Bruce and Steve look away uncomfortably, Natasha just stares back, impassively, but in her eyes there’s something akin to pity.

“The bodies were _normal_ ,” Fury says again, decisively. “Barton?”

Tony’s head swings over to the archer, who keeps staring at the table. “Clint,” he tries, a desperate mirror of all their _TonyTonyTonyTony_ s. “Don’t let them do this to us.”

Clint’s mouth opens and closes a few times before he nods at Fury and struggles out, “I guess. It. Uh. I guess it could have been like that. Like you...uh...said.“

“This is bullshit!” And all eyes snap back to Tony, except Clint, who won’t look at him at all, because he’s buying the company line for the ease of it, because he’s too broken to stand with Tony and insist they see the truth. “So maybe they weren’t aliens or robots but they weren’t _right_. The woman in that picture wasn’t the same bitch that beat people to the ground. No goddamned kindergarten teacher gave liquid tranquilizers to a bunch of children day after day. Something happened to them and made them different. Something was _driving_ them.”

“Brandon Shupe worked for a company associated with AIM, and Al Wilson was contracted by them twice,” Fury says. We suspect that AIM may have orchestrated this whole thing, and were just moving you around until the rest of the team could be neutralized. Barton and the civilians were incidental, just there to ensure your cooperation.”

“Now _that_ sounds about right,” Clint says hollowly, but his voice sounds more like himself for the first time since they’ve been back. Natasha shifts minutely toward him, pressing the length of her arm against his bandaged one.

“ _No_ ,” Tony insists, flinching when someone sighs. His head swivels furiously, but he can’t tell who it was.

“You both made it out alive and relatively unharmed,” Fury concludes and Sitwell checks two more boxes and snaps a folder closed showily, “and we can all be thankful for that. And that’s all there is. That’s the end of it.”

 

*******

But it isn’t the end.

Clint has the range locked down but that doesn’t matter. It’s Tony’s Tower, in the end, and he goes wherever he damned well pleases. Clint isn’t shooting his bow or doing anything; is instead wedged almost impossibly between two metal supply cabinets with his hands over his face, his knees drawn up.

“You fucking _Judas_.”

“I’m sorry.”

The archer looks for all the world like the poster child of trauma and angst, and while some small part of Tony feels sorry for him, the rest is a white hot shaking rage that wants to snatch Clint out of that space and shake him till his neck snaps.

“You hung me out to dry in there!”

“They don’t believe it. They think we’re crazy and, God, what if we are?”

“We saw the same things. We _know_ what happened. They would believe it if we backed each other up. If you’d stood with me, they would _have_ to believe it. Instead you gave in and said what they wanted, just because it was easier.” Tony shoves against Clint’s knees roughly. “And that’s not the only easy way out you’ve taken lately, _is_ it?”

It’s needlessly cruel, just something to make Barton hurt, a retaliation for his betrayal at that meeting. Clint seems to go even more still at the words.

“Stop,” he warns, no strength in his voice.

“Bowie never had a knife. Who’d you take it from? One of the firefighters? That SHIELD agent?” There’s no answer and Tony grabs his ankle, pulling him forward sharply, Clint’s hands springing away from his face to brace against the sides of the cabinets, to keep himself in place. “Get the hell out of there, I’m not talking to you while you’re stuffed in there like that!”

He pulls again and Clint’s other foot kicks out, catching Tony in the shoulder and knocking him on his ass. He scrambles forward again, suddenly nothing seeming more important than dragging Barton out, than making him to stop hiding, to make him admit to what he’s done, to all the things they’ve seen.

“They’re going to kidnap more kids because of you,” Tony snarls, grabbing his foot again, yanking so hard that Clint slides forward, the back of his head hitting the wall behind him with a sickening thud. “Whoever orchestrated this thing is still out there, and is going to stay out there because no one will be looking, because SHIELD thinks it’s over. Sitwell probably put a big red ‘case closed’—“ Tony grits his teeth and pulls harder, Clint kicking at him ineffectually, now hindered by the confines of the space he’d hoped to hide in—“stamp across that fucking...file...” He grunts as Clint’s foot connects again “...folder he loves so—come _out_ of there, Barton, I swear to God—!”

Clint leans back on his uninjured arm and gets enough leverage to kick Tony solidly in the nose, blood spurting out to paint the underside of his boot a bright red.

JARVIS is murmuring something, but Tony ignores it, too focused on catching hold of Clint again.

“You sat—“ he knocks one of Clint’s legs aside, slamming it hard into the outer corner of the cabinet, and the archer groans— “right beside me and slit your goddamned wrist open, you fucking _coward_! After everything that happened, you thought that’d be okay? _That’s_ what you do to a friend after what we went through?”

“Stop,” Clint gasps, and Tony yanks him again, this time hard enough that Clint’s back hits the floor, his legs all the way out of the narrow space now.

“You were gonna leave me another dead body to deal with?” Tony hisses, not caring that Steve and the others have appeared, that hands are all over him suddenly, are trying to be gentle and firm at the same time, trying to pry them apart. “Another fucking ghost to follow me around?”

 

*******

Steve and Natasha haul Clint away, Natasha throwing murderous looks behind her until they disappear. Bruce gives Tony a handkerchief that he hopes to God is clean, then just sort of hovers obnoxiously, alternately wringing his hands and fiddling with his glasses.

“He tried to kill himself. Did you know that?”

“We guessed as much. He made it pretty convincing—it looks just like a defensive wound, but Natasha had her suspicions.”

“He’s going to do it again,” Tony says with certainty, pulling the handkershief away to marvel at all the blood, then pressing it back to his nose. “He’s going to try it again and again until he gets it right, and he’s going to make sure all of us watch it happen.”

“No,” Bruce says reassuringly, and Tony scoffs, because he wasn’t looking for reassurance, wasn’t looking for consolation, he was just stating a fact, making an accusation. “Steve and Natasha will take care of him. If they can’t handle things they’ll get him to SHIELD.”

“Better stick him in a padded room,” Tony agrees, trying to laugh about it, trying to cover up the way his heart suddenly races at that thought. The thought of Barton stuck in a small room without any tools for escape, not allowed to leave. The thought of his friend being drugged to sleep and drugged awake and drugged until he can say all the things they want to hear again. “Wait... _don’t_. Don’t actually—“

“Tony,” Bruce says. “Come on, that isn’t going to happen. I wouldn’t let that happen. None of us would.”

“You believe me, right? I’m not traumatized or hallucinating or whatever—I’m telling the truth. I don’t know if Fury is gaslighting us or if he really believes what he’s saying, but... Bruce, I’m telling the truth.”

Bruce winds his arm around Tony’s shoulders, holding his hands up in apology when Tony instinctively wrenches away. “I know that people can look and act normal and still have monsters hiding beneath the surface,” he says seriously. “I know that sometimes there is no way to fight back. I believe that. I believe _you_.”

 

*******

For awhile Tony just breathes. He avoids his workshop, Stark Industries, and the Avengers—holes up in his apartment with Pepper and sleeps and eats and sleeps some more. He watches her cook chicken and potatoes and rice and soon enough he fills out again, and his original Pat Benatar shirt returns, the one with the hole in the bottom hem, right where it’s supposed to be.

A few weeks later Pepper asks him to read over a company press release. He makes a few suggestions and then adds some obscene doodles in the margins before she kisses him and takes it away.

Another day she sighs and hands him her broken phone sheepishly, and he’s appalled, because that’s theoretically _impossible_ —everyone knows that Starkphones are indestructible.

“I just don’t know what happened,” she says innocently, but there’s that devil dancing behind her eyes that Tony loves so well, the one that prods and chides and pushes him to be better. “I think someone might have stepped on it.”

“Yeah, the _Hulk_ maybe. You now, someone around here sure is underhanded. Cute and sexy and brilliant...but underhanded.” He pinches her cheek, and she bats his hand away, smiling.

There isn’t the necessary equipment in the apartment so he has to go to the workshop for the first time in ages, spends the whole day with the phone under a magnifying glass, coaxing it back to life with tiny tools. He uses the last half hour to take a hundred smirking selfies and then altering the programming to make them undeletable. It feels like an appropriate revenge.

 

*******

And another day he feels bored and television isn’t interesting, he’s reached he terminal end of random internet searches, Pepper is mysteriously absent and Tony’s feet somehow walk him right to Bruce’s laboratory.

“Hey,” Bruce says, waving absentmindedly, not bothering to pull his eyes away from the microscope, where something orange is multiplying on a slide. “Long time no see.”

“Present day and _still_ no see,” Tony points out and Bruce sits back and grins in acknowledgement. “Tell me, dear Brucie—have you created something terrible, or wonderful?”

Bruce chews on his lip for a moment. “A little bit of both?”

“Excellent.”

 

*******

“You look better,” Tony says. Clint has more color in his face now than in months and has obviously started eating again, the sharp angles in his frame gone. He’s even gotten his hair cut at some point and looks fairly put together. “Are you _feeling_ better?”

“Sure.”

“Look, Tweetie—I’m sorry. Sorry I called you a liar and then tried to beat you up.”

“You sprained my ankle,” Clint scolds, but he’s smiling a little. The man holds a few grudges of epic proportions, but appears to let everything else slide off his back. “But that’s okay. And I _am_ a liar.” His smile dims, then falls off.

“Remember the douchebag?” Tony asks quickly, before Clint can say anything else. “Gary?”

“Of course.” Clint sighs and shakes his head. “You always had a real bug up your ass about that guy.”

“He made an already living hell ten thousand times worse!” _Especially for you,_ Tony doesn’t add, remembering Clint alone, everyone’s back to him. “He’s still never turned up. JARVIS is on it, but...he’s just not anywhere.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” And damned if Clint doesn’t actually look sorry. “Gary wasn’t so bad, you know. He was just scared.”

“He was such an asshole,” Tony says, almost fondly. “I always thought he would have pissed his pants if he ever found out who he was actually tangling with; who you really were.”

Clint shrugs the statement away uncomfortably and they fall into a silence, one that he fills before Tony dares to. “Clara knew who _you_ were. So she also knew that you were Iron Man, because you never hid that.”

“So she probably guessed who you were, too.”

“No one knows who Hawkeye is,” Clint says matter of factly, staring down at his hands. “She never said, but...I think she thought I was Captain America.” He makes a sound in the back of his throat, something between a laugh and a sob. “Somebody thinking that _I_ was Steve—that’s funny, isn’t it? I thought so. But I let her think it all the same...for the same reason you told those stupid stories.”

“Clint.”

“Because it isn’t good for people to be afraid,” he pushes on. “Not if you can help it. Not if they don’t have to be. So if hearing about dogs and cats makes you forget for awhile, or believing that you’re sitting next to Captain America and believing that he just might save you—then it’s okay. It’s okay for them to believe that. Even at the end, when she was shaking and scared, she came to me and felt safe in that last moment. She believed, even then, that I would save her.”

“You _did_ ,” Tony insists. “You saved her from something worse.”

Clint shakes his head fiercely and grits his teeth. “Tony.”

“Don’t.” Clint’s voice sounds too much like it did that day, the day of the fire, of the escape, when he’d reached out and Tony had cut him off, never knowing if the next words following that _Tony_ would have been something like _I just cut myself_ or _please help_ or even _I’m sorry_. There’s a ragged quality to the word that sounds just the same and, just like before, Tony can’t bear to hear what comes next. “Don’t say it.”

“Tony, I’m so sorry.”

“ _Don’t_.”

“About the kid. About that little boy.”

“Shut up right now.”

“That he suffered. Horribly, for too long. I’m sorry that I didn’t spare him that. That I didn’t spare you, or the other kids, from _seeing_ that. I knew you wanted me to. Everyone did. I could feel everyone’s eyes on me and I still couldn’t do it. Not after what happened to Clara.”

“ _Stop_.” This time Tony is the one begging, and Clint is the relentless one, pulling at him, trying to yank him out of the comfortable place he’s only just found, a place where all the pain didn’t sit so closely to the surface, pushing it right back up to the top.

Clint holds up his palms and extends them slightly toward Tony, as if in offering. “So many people’s lives have passed though my hands. Even _I_ don’t know how many. Never wanted to make an accounting of it, because at some point I’m a monster, and I could never bear to know if that point is long behind me or still ahead. The things I’ve done—so long and so easily—but I couldn’t do it for Santi, couldn’t do it for you. And I wanted to. I did. But instead I watched a child fucking gasp himself to death, when I should have spared him, and I’m so sorry.”

“He would still be dead,” Tony says, his chest tight, and wonders vaguely if he’s having a heart attack, if that’s what this is. If he’s put his body through hell for years and had his heart destroyed and built himself a new one, only for it to end this way. A heart attack would be easier than the break that threatens, and all of this pain is because Clint Barton just wouldn’t stop talking. “It wouldn’t have made any difference.”

“Nothing I did ever made a difference,” Clint says desperately, a little wild eyed, and stares at his hands, at the dark red lines that crisscross his arm. “I couldn’t do even one thing right.”

And that thing twists in his chest again, right where his heart would be—if he had one—something that has been tight and painful and festering since the last day a tiny hand last held his, and it’s too much, and he breaks. Breaks the way Clint had long ago, the way he hadn’t allowed himself, holding himself together with hope and anger and determination. While all of that had enough to get them out it wasn’t enough to hold him through, none of it was strong enough to hold forever. Tony leans into his friend and weeps, and Clint’s hand comes up and runs over his back.

  
*******

** Epilogue **

For all their secrecy and all their missteps, SHIELD never gives up. Jasper Sitwell taps his keyboard and cross references and double checks and ticks boxes until he recreates the captives’ movements from their mass abduction in Chicago, to their liberation in Raleigh, and all of the stops in between. Storage buildings, abandoned schools, even a hospital morgue in Arkansas—he goes to them all.

There are trash bags full of crumpled Dixie cups. Words written in dust and dirt by desperate fingers— _kidnapped, please help, send police, help help help help._ Piles of hastily discarded clothing. A Boy Scout uniform that Jasper collects. A pair of blue jeans with candy bar wrappers and bottle caps stuffed into the pockets that he leaves behind.

And by one he finds them, left behind, locked away. The body of Santi Cruz-Henao. Clara Zambrano. Madeline Kale. Naomi Booker. Tanya Bagchi. And then finally, the first of them to be killed, his name reclaimed at last, Elliot Oderwald. They’re sent home to their families, who finally get to stop looking, to stop wondering.

“He wasn’t alone at the end,” Jasper tells Santi’s parents. “He died in the arms of a friend, who loved him the best way that he knew how.”

He gives them their son but not the Scout uniform, leaving its discovery out of his report, and maybe that’s not the proper thing to do, but he thinks it’s right all the same. He gives it instead to Tony Stark, who looks at Jasper with his usual contempt, which does little to mask the pain in his eyes.

“I’d like to meet his family someday,” Stark says. “If they want to know anything about it. I could tell them. I would be careful not to, you know, make it _worse_.” He shrugs, as if it doesn’t affect him at all, as if his knuckles weren’t white from the force of his grip on the blue shirt. “Did you ever find the asshole?” he asks suddenly. “Did you ever find Gary?”

“Not yet,” Jasper tells him. “But I will. I’ll keep looking until I do. I’ll look forever.”

“Good,” Stark answers. “Good.”


End file.
